


Piercing

by CorsetJinx



Category: Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
Genre: F/M, Magic Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-05-25 05:48:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6182911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorsetJinx/pseuds/CorsetJinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even after the dragoon's trial something still lingers, watching in the shadows. But she's long stopped fearing those.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The sight of her, even in a brief glimpse, even here where he should not be, brought curiosity tinged with a muted warmth that did not come from the thought of killing his enemy and taking what he deemed his by right. Green hair, voluminous and thick, swayed when she turned. He stayed where he was, tucked into the shadow of the mirror’s infinite reflections. Her heels had announced her presence long before, enough that he had opted to keep out of her sight rather than face direct confrontation.

The Creator’s malice only gave him so much of a form – a mere echo of what his other self had faced, and once lost against. But reality could be manipulated, and there was more than enough magic for him to utilize for such a simple purpose.

Further back, with the larger group assembling to rest or catch whatever precious little they could, his other self helped the Baron princeling with the task of healing the wounded.

Why she felt daring enough to brave the perimeter of the supposed safe zone was beyond him, but her head kept turning, her eyes seeking a thing he didn’t know how to name.

Until he realized that she’d found him.

If he’d possessed a body, one with actual muscle and sinew, he would have tensed. As a thing more lingering emotion and thought, given form by Lunarian magic once before, again now by the probing mind and intent of the being that waited within the True Moon – he simply turned his mouth downward in a scowl and waited for flames or lightning to banish him.

As a black mage and summoner, she certainly had the strength to do it – and leave him weaker, if even capable of manifesting.

Again her heels sounded on the crystalline floor, one of her hands lifting in passing at one of her comrade’s voices telling her not to go too far. It made the golden thread of her sleeve catch what light there was, bringing a brighter color to the otherwise monotonous surroundings. He gave thought to dissipating, but even if he did she would suss him out the next time. If there even was a next time, considering what they still had yet to face.

“You’re here.” Her voice pitched low so as not to carry, she regarded him with curious eyes of her own. Green, green as her hair, light as some of the accents on her clothes.

“As are you.” He muttered, wary of this turn of events when he’d braced himself for destruction.

Her mouth twitched at that, as if she found his dry remark to be amusing, if only briefly.

“You don’t seem to be what Ceodore described. Are you… fading?” She hesitated saying the word, either unsure that it would be the correct one for his situation or…

Or what, he wasn’t sure.

“Take a look.” Lifting his chin, he cocked his helm back towards the group of allies she’d left behind – in particular the holy dragoon. She followed his movement, pausing as she observed his other self grimacing through a spell, then turned her gaze back to him. Uncertainty still lingered within her eyes, so he supplied a cursory summarization. “I am already gone. What you see are shadows pulled by another.”

Bitterness tinged the words, his hate for being used as a tool plain to observe.

“You look sad.” Her hands, deceptively slim and nails painted emerald, folded over one another. “I wondered, because you’ve been watching us for a while.”

Damn all the Moons, and whatever else the Creator had in store.

“How long have you noticed and said nothing?” He pushed back the rising irritation, content to let his eyes narrow behind his helm. It wasn’t as if she would be able to see it.

“Since we entered this place.” She very nearly shrugged, stopping herself for whatever reason. “Did you forget that I’m a black mage? Destructive energies are something I’m familiar with.” There was a flicker of light in her expression, her tone verging on teasing.

It was bewildering, just as she was, even more so when he discovered that he’d been smirking without realizing it.

“So you believe I don’t mean you harm?” Some of his previous bite coated the question, not just for show.

Thought-forms, though insubstantial could border on dangerous – for all it would lack the power he’d possessed as a physical entity.

“If you did, you would be waiting further down with the other one.” All signs of mirth disappeared from her face, a grimness that came from knowledge and resignation settling in its place.

He wasn’t surprised that she’d picked up on the thing further below, waiting for the mere chance to scatter her and all her companions to oblivion.

Destructive energies indeed – and these in a form she would be intimately familiar with.

“So why come here when you could have just as easily remained within sanctuary’s bounds? Unlike _him_ ,” he jerked his chin once more, unwilling to speak his true self’s name, “we are neither allies or friends.”

“You looked sad.” She left him with that, gaze almost boring into him as she waited out his brief rise of temper.

Such a small and simple reason – unless she was toying with him.

Really though – with all that he remembered, every one of his true self’s memories, Rydia had been among the least manipulative of persons. Astounding, given everything that had been done, that he _(they)_ had done. And truly, even his own paranoia and hostility could only be stretched so far.

“You are mistaken.” For a lack of any better retort, he opted for the simplest response.

“Then why do you keep trying to look away from me?” Her tone shifted with that, a spark of something between the words. When he stared at her, she rolled her eyes. “You think I don’t know by now when someone isn’t meeting me halfway? That helmet doesn’t cover as much as you think it does.”

If it were his true self here, at this moment, the man might have winced at that.

Since it was only what shred of himself that remained, a lingering darkness – embraced and accepted yes, but not entirely dissolved, he sneered.

“I owe you no explanation. If you want to see the next battle through, then you should go and rest while the option is viable.” It wasn’t his _(their)_ best diversion, but he could see that it stoked her temper all the same. Like the magic she used, she could be a volatile combination of emotion and intent if she wished.

She didn’t move. Neither, he noticed, did she acknowledge the stares that were gradually turning her way.

Among them was one he would have appeared identical to, save for a few differences, if they stood shoulder-to-shoulder.

“One of these days I’m going to get either of you to tell me what you really think rather than what you say to drive me off.” She drew herself up, irritated yes, but controlling it. “And when it happens, _Kain_ ,” she stressed the moniker deliberately, obviously addressing not just him, “I’m not going to let either of you run from me.”

He nearly did wince this time, catching it soon enough to only deepen the downward tilt of his lips.

The memory rose in his mind, but whether it did for his true self as well he could never say.

As he pushed it aside, she was already turning back for camp.

Instead of asking her to wait, he simply projected what remained of his voice now that he was reduced to this.

“You might face better odds going for _him_ instead.”

Her head turned, waves of hair framing her face, and she pinned him with a look that was more fierce than any Rosa had ever levied at Cecil or his true self. Distantly, he felt an answering heat – not quite within himself, but from the whole being that he’d once abandoned.

“Neither of you are getting away from me this time.” With that, she continued her march back to the safety of the people waiting – all of them curious to one degree or another.

He felt it when she leveled that same stare at Kain Highwind, real and whole as they’d ever been before, and felt an answering flush in his own face.


	2. Seeking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the True Moon leaves things should have been set to rights. Rydia still senses that this is not the case.

She finds that the mountain is not so much a place of dread and terror as some made it out to be, though if she wanted to be fair there couldn’t be much fault in applying such thoughts to a place where the undead teemed in such thick droves. Rydia doesn’t think of what a challenge it must have been for Cecil to climb up to the top – for one, he’s not the reason that she’s here and all that led up to and after his trial is past anyway.

Dust clings to her boots and clothes as she walks, unhurried, towards the mouth of yet another cavern. She’d found that whenever the wind so much as breezed by a new layer of fine, sometimes grainy, particles would do its best to cling to the green of her clothes. She’d scrubbed at it once, part annoyance and partly of boredom as there was nothing else to do once camp was made. The stuff hadn’t smeared like ash would have, but it didn’t easily release its hold on the thin, shimmering fabric of her sleeves.

Now she ignores the way the dust stirs in the wake of her footsteps, how it puffs up in miniature clouds when the shambling feet of the undead or the taunting wisp of a spirit comes by. Her eyes are focused upward, towards the apex of the mountain, when they are not looking about her for signs of a threat or the faint waiting presence she can just barely sense.

It feels familiar, in a way. Akin to her mother’s spirit when she had strengthened the Mist Dragon.

Porom had said that the shrine at the top of the mountain had lost the power it once had and she recalled a shadow of guilt passing over Kain’s face at the mention of it. Now that she was here and extending her senses as far as they would go – without breaching the delicate, ephemeral barrier that would allow her to summon the Eidolons – what echoed back against her mind was a long and lonely quiet. The closer she got to the top, the more _something_ seemed to press back against her silent call but neither her ears nor mind caught the sound of a mystic voice that Cecil had once described.

Perhaps, she thought, the mountain was simply that now – a mountain. If so, then it would be sad yes, but even she know that a spirit could not cling to a physical place for eternity.

The back of her head prickled as if with an itch, familiar steps becoming audible to her as she paused in the short cave system’s narrow belly. Figures lurched, one slithered, and Rydia felt her mouth tighten at the hissing echo of scales over rock. The lamia’s laughter danced brashly over the otherwise still air, a taunting threat backed up by magic-sealing claws.

Even so, she built up the chant for a spell in her mind, reaching for her whip at the same time as drawing power from within herself. In the weak light afforded by the cave’s exit she could make out three reanimated corpses jostling with one another’s sluggish pace to reach her first, the monster travelers called ‘Lilith’ hanging back to observe.

Clever eyes peered back at her from a woman’s beautiful face, seafoam tinted hair spilling over her shoulders but doing little to hide the ample bosom the creature boasted – until what looked like human skin merged with the wet-looking scales of a snake, the tail longer and wider than Rydia herself and capable of crushing a grown man in full plate armor.

Feeling the pressure of holding back the elemental torrent, Rydia released her spell on the shuffling undead – lightning snapping and crackling over wizened, decaying flesh and charring it crisp, fusing yellowed bone together at the joints from the heat or destroying it entirely. The Lilith screeched at the display of luminescence, eyes shut tight against the onslaught as it recoiled.

Rydia took the chance immediately, lashing out with the length of her whip to score the monster’s flesh with poisoned barbs, tuning out the howl of agony that rose in response. Violet ichor seeped from the wounds as the lamia wrenched away, hissing out curses as the green-haired woman drew back her weapon to prepare another assault.

One of the barbs struck a crevice in the stone floor and stuck there, Rydia’s practiced tug doing nothing to free it.

Green eyes widened for a second before the slithering motion of the Lilith caught the summoner’s attention, Rydia jumping back to avoid the swipe of a vicious clawed hand. At such a close distance the monster’s shriek bordered on deafening, the urge to clap her hands over her ears overwhelming for all she resisted.

Fire blazed to life in the slender bit of space between them, scorching enough that Rydia felt her skin prickle and sting in protest. Orange-tongued flames ate at the monster’s fair complexion, blackening it and the powerful tail alike as the creature’s death-wail and the odor of burning flesh suffused the cavern.

Rydia coughed, stumbling away from the lurching of the falling body to wrench her whip free and bolt for the cave’s exit. Smoke followed her out, chasing her almost, and she did not stop running until it was a dirty column drifting into the open air some distance behind her. Sucking in clean, bitter air to clear her lungs Rydia kept her eyes shut tight, pushing back against the old memories that rose to chill her skin and twist her stomach more than most other things ever could.

She wasn’t eight anymore and this mountain was not the one she’d accidentally created by summoning Titan in a moment of fear and rage. This wasn’t Mist burning to the ground around her and she would not find two men in armor tinted hellish shades by the flames standing behind her.

Foggily aware that her hand had clenched around the handle of her whip strongly enough to be painful Rydia forced herself to take a slower, deeper breath. The chill to the air helped center her senses, even if it crept under the layers of her clothes and left gooseflesh on her skin. When her lungs ceased to sting she straightened up, opening her eyes slowly and loosened her grasp on her weapon.

It was shocking to see green everywhere, enough that it temporarily drove her panic from her mind. She’d had to pass by the ring of trees that surrounding Mount Ordeals on her way to climb its slopes, true, but to see the forest from such a height was breathtaking. Further off, if she squinted, the short range of mountains that stopped towards the coast of the Mysidian continent could be seen. They looked blocky and less imposing from here, more like big stones Titan might have placed there as a whim like one might move a game-piece on a board.

Her mouth quirked at that, one hand shading her eyes from the sun as she turned in a slow circuit, straining to see as much as she could. Humbling, she supposed, to see the world from the ground or a mountainside as opposed to the deck of an airship. Lifting her gaze to the sky she only saw a great expanse of blue and the brilliant orb of the sun, not a cloud or bird breaking up the scene. She had a bit of daylight left, perhaps enough to reach the upper reaches of the mountain before night came.

Turning her senses inward, taking stock of her own fatigue and remaining magic, she allowed herself one last look at the comforting swath of green that only came so close to the foot of the mountain.

Looping her whip loosely upon itself to be ready in case she was attacked again, Rydia resumed her walk towards the summit. Her heels dully clicked when they met stone that wasn’t dampened by dirt or dust, steps not quite as composed as they had been earlier. Carefully, almost warily, the black mage extended her senses again to feel for the faint resonance that tempted her to seek out its source. The wind felt sharper for a moment, biting into exposed patches of skin with renewed interest and even her own steps sounded too loud in the cone of her own heightened awareness.

It came as lightly as predawn mist touching the flesh, not so much a tendril of thought as a thin presence – something that might have once been vast and strong as Leviathan’s rumbling voice. The contact did not last beyond that – either she was too far from the source or it was too weak to sustain itself, or both.

Nonetheless resolute, Rydia kept on, refusing to let the experience so far deter her.

The wind grew more restless the further up she went, often carrying the sounds of the undead and what other creatures that managed to eke out a kind of living on the mountain. It gave her opportunity to prepare ahead of time, her spells cutting through zombies and ghouls with ease, the barbs of her whip doing the same for the gargoyles that tried to catch and rend her flesh with their talons from above. Worst might have been the spirits whom she could not always see as much as sense their malevolent presence, their magic harder to counter without first knowing where they were. Thankfully their conjured bolts and flames were not the strongest of magicks and her own could dispel what presence the enemy maintained enough to claim a sort of half-life.

She reached the squat plateau near to the summit as the light began to turn to amber and shaded her dreary surrounding with an orange cast, deepening the shadows that lingered near the boulders and formations which lined the rickety-looking bridge nearby. Her mind buzzed with the nearness of the magic circle laid out to provide safety to those that sought to visit the shrine and she shuffled gratefully towards it. Stepping between the border stones and into the circle itself Rydia closed her eyes to relish the protective magic that surrounded her.

It welcomed her, in a sense. She could feel it pressing gently at the corners of her mind - promising respite and healing, to restore her tapped reserves and protect her from any threat which might seek her life in the dark.

Rydia laughed shortly, acquiescing to the ache in her feet and lowering herself to the ground to remove her boots. The idea of protection was a welcome, and amusing, one even though she was fully capable of defending herself. Sighing once cold air touched the heated skin of her feet, muscles twinging familiarly as she stretched them, she let herself have a moment of relaxation before moving to set up one of the tents she’d carried with her from Mist.

Above her the sky turned umber as the sun gradually sunk beneath the horizon, the view from her perch one that could only be rivaled by the memory of watching the sun emerge from around the curve of the Blue Planet on the Lunar Whale. She hadn’t been alone then, the assembled group of people from almost every country and background united in a state of quiet as they’d watched the natural miracle occur before them.

A smile pressed her lips into a curve at the memory as the young woman idly swung her nearly bare feet back and forth over the edge of the cliff she sat on, watching the horizon with an absent eye as the circle’s magic thrummed beneath and all around her. Rydia remained watching as the sunset gave way to night, stars making their appearance and the singular moon slowly rising from the other end of the world.

She could summon Bahamut and they could fly together on a night such as this. The coldness of the wind would wake her up but the all-too real heat from the Hallowed Father’s draconian body would keep her warm as he would carry them up into the higher layers of the atmosphere, the beating of giant wings defying gravity and propelling them faster than any airship ever could. Light from the moon and stars would reflect off his scales and turn them to silver, purer even than Cecil Harvey’s paladin armor.

Holding that image in her mind, almost giving in to the wish for it, Rydia relished in the knowledge that she _could_ do it. A cost of her magic and energy to pave the way for the indomitable spirit of the Father of Eidolons and they’d be airborne, up and away from this supposedly cursed mountain that once granted blessings.

Opening her eyes Rydia smirked at herself and moved languidly to stand. Her tent was welcoming enough and once inside she picked through her belongings for the bread and cheese she’d been saving for this leg of her little journey. Her sleeping bag provided more comfort for her legs and bottom than a dragon’s scales would and she ate at her own pace, enjoying the lack of demands upon her time for what it was worth.

Done with her meal she dusted her hands off and gingerly coaxed the ornament from her hair with the long ease of practice, setting it aside and feeling her neck lose some of the tension she’d been carrying throughout the day. The sleeping bag rustled when she crawled into it but it sealed out the growing chill, what the walls of her tent didn’t manage to shut out. Her eyes roamed out of habit, shutting briefly as she yawned, but the tent’s canvas was too thick to spot the stars.

Rydia slept, worries laid aside for the morning.

-

Sunlight proved itself to be cannier than its more distant cousin starlight, creeping between the flaps of her tent to cheerfully shine on her face. The summoner scrunched her face up in discomfort as the backs of her eyelids obligingly turned reddish-pink with the light falling on them. Turning onto her side and away from the light Rydia squinted, senses full of the circle’s magic and the tips of her fingers tingling from both the early morning air and the fullness of her restored power.

Getting ready took hardly any time since she’d come to the mountain alone and within minutes she was stepping out of the circle’s ring of protection and crossing the bridge that connected the halves of the plateau. The wood creaked under her step but didn’t give and she remained cautious until her feet were firmly on the other side. A part of her spared a thought for Rosa’s Float spell, but she wouldn’t have bothered her friend for something as small as this.

There was, after all, hardly any proof to her suspicion to even bring her here. But here she was and the summit was, to her knowledge, not so great a walk from this final resting area for pilgrims that dared the mountain.

Her limited knowledge of the mountain proved right in that at least, her steady pace leading her through a last twisting path before she could glimpse the shrine ahead – its pale stone making it stand out from the surrounding area just as much as the short pillars raised around it. To Rydia’s surprise, no monsters tried to impede her progress, though she kept a hand on her whip just in case. The last bridge creaked just as the one before it did, swaying with her movement as she carefully picked her way across.

She wondered if people from Mysidia were the ones who had built and maintained the bridges, or if it had been the work of travelers in the past, seeking a way over the final slopes of the mountain that was safer than trying to climb the stone itself.

Safely across, Rydia found her stride becoming less quick as she approached the raised area of the shrine, slowing down until her heels made hardly noise at all against the strangely clean platform of unsettlingly familiar rock. It must have come from the moon, she thought, because no other stone on the Blue Planet had such an odd quality to it – paler than alabaster and where the sun touched it the surface it seemed to glow from within.

The doors of the shrine were closed but unbarred, her time amongst the dwarves helping her eyes to spot the seam which gave the entrance away. A plaque rested nearby, its surface weathered and the writing on it faded. She stared at it for several seconds, absently willing the symbols to make sense. When recognition failed to spark Rydia turned away, facing the silent doors.

Cecil had said that a voice had welcomed him in and presented the trial of the paladin to him. It had called him ‘son’ and from what she had overheard from FuSoYa on their first journey it had been the spirit of his younger brother, KluYa, father to both Golbez and Cecil.

Kain had not spoken of his own trial, at least not to her. She had only caught the story third-hand while they had come together as the mass group that boarded the Lunar Whale together.

Focusing on the building before her Rydia gingerly extended her mage’s senses once more - seeking, calling, for any remnant of the spirit that had inhabited the mountain for so long. The shrine had its own kind of presence, one of a type of silence that most associated with the profoundly holy. Her definition of it was slightly different but the vastness of the quiet filled her mind all the same.

The touch of magic remained in the stone of the shrine, pale echoes of what must have been a considerable power. No voice beckoned her inside or called her ‘daughter’. Her mental push could not go beyond the barrier of the shrine itself, its inner chamber beyond her ability to see without physical eyes.

There was… something. What, she had a suspicion, but without entering herself there was no proving it.

Her concentration broke at a faint sound, emerald eyes blinking as she came back to herself in time to watch the doors of the shrine weakly open. Rydia stared into the darkened chamber, unable to see much but the niggling suggestion of a presence increased just the slightest bit.

Shaking off the feeling that she was about to face something unpleasant, same as the feeling she’d experienced on the True Moon, Rydia slowly climbed the short steps and entered the shrine. The doors trembled closed behind her in silence and she marveled at the force nudging them and how frail it was. She’d encountered it before in occasional journeys to Mysidia for one reason or another, some of the elderly mages who only possessed a thin remnant of their power as they neared their end – magical stirring so weak they might have been the thinnest breeze over her skin.

Before her the walls and floor were tiled in what could have been the clearest of mirrored glass – all at once the sense of being on the Moon returned full-force, hitching her breath and making her eyes dart about to spot what threat might lurk further in the large room. And it _was_ large, bigger than her shared room with Cuore in Mist. Silence stretched out and nothing happened, no monster appeared to test her and no voice inquired about her reasons for coming here if redemption was not her desire.

She had nothing for which she wished to be redeemed of anyway.

The click of her heel served to further increase her growing disquiet as she took the first step further into the room, a movement that was replicated just ahead of her. Her attention snapped to it, instinct rearing up and telling her to strike – but no foe presented itself. Another step brought her closer and the flicker of movement appeared again, from an actual wall of mirrors she realized.

Rather than the crystal beneath the gold-edged heels of her boots, the entire wall ahead of her was carefully arranged mirrors – all of them reflecting the room around her into infinity. Only a single space was darkened by a silhouette, the one directly in front of her.

Rydia moved towards it, one hand on the handle of her whip and the other braced to cast. The shape darkened and changed a she drew closer, the faint nudge at her senses at once familiar now that she’d grown accustomed to it.

It was not her own reflection that greeted her when she stood before the panes of glass and no others broke the monotony of the room around her.

He looked the same as he had on the True Moon, save for the odd flatness that came from looking at a reflection. Armor that was a darker hue than what Kain had worn in his days as Commander of Baron’s Dragoons, a bright red ribbon trailing from the snarling dragon’s helm rather than plumes or the man’s own hair. The paleness of his skin and darker tint of purple in his lips stood out all the more in the shadows of the shrine’s inner chamber, green lenses in his helm glinting at her in place of his eyes.

Unlike their first encounter, he did not look nearly as surprised to see her. In fact, she would almost say he looked displeased to see her here.

“You know, it’s considered bad manners to pretend to say goodbye to someone and then disappear to hole themselves up somewhere else.” Rydia let a touch of her impatience work its way through the unconventional greeting, tone only just shy of admonishing.

His face couldn’t seem to settle on a single expression for a moment, amusement and irritation warring with each other as she watched the battle play out with a measure of satisfaction. Finally the specter arranged what could be seen of his face into disapproval, arms slowly folding over the expanse of his chest. “I did no such thing. Your accusation is misplaced my lady.”

“I am not your _lady_.” Warnings collected in that inflection and he seemed to take note of it, lips pressing into a thin line as Rydia stared him down with faintly narrowed eyes. “You’ve been siphoning what you could out of KluYa’s remaining power to sustain yourself since the Creator died.”

His tone matched hers, though it verged on sullen. “And what of it? Did you expect me to meet the very end your allies gave the Dark Knight?” His dark lips curved into a sneer as though it were possible for him to look down upon her. “Or are you here to finish the job yourself?”

“I’m _here_ because _you_ and _him_ are hurting and _neither_ of you are going to do anything about it.” One slender finger jabbed at the narrow space between herself and the glass, his form safe from the assault only because he did not, or could not, step from the reflective prison. Anger seeped its way into her voice as she continued, deliberately staring him in the eye despite the protection of his helm. “Kain can claim all the business in the world because of the Red Wings and Baron’s recovery as the reason, but _I_ know when magic is draining someone. You were lingering even after we faced the Creator and rather than be whole with yourself you’re _here_.”

“What he does is of no concern to me.” The vehemence in the armored specter’s voice split through her argument as she’d seen his and Kain’s lance pierce the strongest of enemies. It was his turn to step closer but his standing was deliberate and slow, intimidation tactics counter to her raw emotion. His face nearly touched the glass as he challenged her gaze. “I would choose my own existence over his and you know it.”

“That’s not how it works Kain.” She didn’t back down from him. “The longer you’re here the weaker you’ll get because there’s nothing left to sustain you. KluYa spent the last of his power wherever he’s gone it isn’t a place you can reach.” The words stung her throat, bristling with too much energy and emotion.

In a moment of sharp-edged cruelty she asked, “Is it because you don’t want to look at the things the human part of you still wants even when you know they’re unattainable and that acceptance hurts the both of you?”

Purple lips pulled back to show teeth, blunt and human even though he was still but a portion of the person she spoke of. “You dare – “

“Grief and forgiveness take time Kain.” She cut him off, standing straight and at her tallest as he flinched. “Even when they’re pulled from the whole of a person by magic.” Green eyes studied him and the wavering edges that proved how thin his connection to the world really was. Her edges did not soften when she spoke, though the words themselves were not harsh. “I had mine, in the Feymarch. Cecil, Rosa and Edge all had theirs too – but not you. You don’t want to let go.”

Of all the times, now he could not seem to meet her eye.

“If you are not here to cleanse this place with fire, what do you want?” It left him as a hiss, jaw just shy of clenching.

“I told you. Neither one of you are getting away from me again.” She felt her mouth quirk at that, settling her hands on her hips as she continued, leaning to catch his eye. “I want everything that is Kain Highwind and I’m not going to let his masochistic need to punish himself keep him from being as happy as he can be. Even if he doesn’t want me the same, I don’t settle for halves.” Her smile grew wider, if only for a moment.

“Impossible woman you are.” The reflection before her huffed, hands slowly clenching into fists for a moment.

Rydia only smiled wider, hands still at her hips.

The dragoon’s helm glared at her as he cocked his head to the side. “What makes you think you are right? This is a terrible amount of effort you’re going through just for some whimsy.”

“I could be wrong.” She admitted, tone light as the current of an aero spell. “Even then I would see to it that you and he stop hurting yourselves like this. It’s exactly what drove a wedge in the first time and if you really wanted to be free you would have seized what remained of KluYa’s magic and left.”

This time _he_ glared at her, she could feel it.

She’d found Bahamut’s measuring stare more fearsome.

“You presume much, just as they did.” The words sounded as though he’d pulled them out like teeth, his hands easing from their balled up position to rest as his sides.

“Stop trying to find excuses not to be happy.” She countered.

“With you?” He sneered, image paper-thin.

“Anything and everything.” Rydia raised a hand to tuck a stray bit of green hair back, watching him. “Speaking from experience, it’s better to face the things that cause you pain than to let them build like a misfired spell.”

He laughed, soft and a little bitter. “And you thought I wouldn’t notice you drawing the magic from me?”

A different smile touched her face, nearly sad as she let her hands ease down by her sides. “I thought you might, but it had to be done. As unstable as you already were it was just poisoning you.”

“And him.” He quipped, his deep voice fainter than it had been moments ago.

“Yes. And him.” Rydia agreed softly, lifting a hand to gently touch the glass separated them. It remained solid and cold against her fingertips, if the specter on the other side could feel the contact he showed no sign of it. “Let this place go, Kain.”

He made that sound, somewhere between a huff and a laugh, that the green-haired woman had come to find both irritating and attractive.

“I suppose you will tell him that once you see him, as you’ve drained me of all else.” The jab was there even if it lacked significant force behind it.

Rydia’s expression did not change much, concentration mixed with a faint tinge of sadness. “Not all black magic takes its form as obvious destructive force. I just had the training my mother gave me as a summoner to help.”

His mouth quirked at that, the last of him that she saw as his image wavered before it dissipated entirely – leaving her to face her own fatigued reflection, fingertips braced against one another through the glass.

She studied her own appearance, ending the spell which had drained a larger portion of her energy than she’d thought. Nothing changed as she turned her head from one side to the other, green eyes tracking every movement with wary attention.

No magic but her own hummed on the edge of her awareness, the shrine just that – a memorial to a man that had brought incredible knowledge and power to the Blue Planet many years before her birth. As she’d thought, wherever KluYa’s spirit had gone after Kain’s trial and the departure of the True Moon, it was not a place someone could reach.

Dropping her hand, Rydia rocked her weight back on her heels for a moment, letting out a breath she had been holding within her mind. Silence filled the space around her, no less now that she had drained the presence that had taken up residence in it. She felt a sense of accomplishment, but tiredness was close behind – both of the physical and magical variety.

Turning away from the mirrors the summoner took measured steps out of the room, grateful when the door swung open at a touch without her having to apply magic. The noise of the wind and the world replaced the quiet of KluYa’s tomb, doing a little to wake her up. She turned her body towards the path she’d taken what seemed like hours ago, though a glance towards the arch of the sky confirmed that perhaps only one had passed since she’d entered.

As she walked she thought of her options, one ear pricked to catch any sound of approaching monsters. Mysidia was close and Baron was far, far away. She could summon one of her Eidolons to make the trek easier depending on how she fared once she reached the traveler’s circle again.

If the fatigue persisted, she would just spend the day to recover.


End file.
